“On what?”
“On whether you want to fight for her the way she is fighting for you.”
I stared at the floor. The broken penthouse. The fractured look in her eyes when I left. The way she had screamed no. The way she had stepped between us, and I had only seen betrayal. What I had missed was desperation. The desperation to stay and to make me stay.
“She doesn’t know where you are, and she doesn’t think you will ever come back for her,” Ilana said.
The thought burned.
“I don’t want to start a war,” I said.
“No one is asking you to.”
“But if I go to them—”
“You don’t go to them.”
“Then what?”
“You make it clear,” Ilana said calmly, “that this was never about leverage.”
My mind began to recalibrate. Not in terms of retaliation. Not escalation. But precision and choice.
“She has to choose again,” Ilana said.
“Yes.”
“And this time,” she added, “don’t doubt her.”
I exhaled slowly, and for the first time since the penthouse fell, the spiral steadied.
“She fought to return, and she loves me,” I repeated, as if still trying to make myself believe it.
“Yes.”
“She didn’t betray me.”
“No.”
The relief was violent. Almost disorienting and was followed immediately by something heavier. Something like responsibility.
“I assumed the worst,” I said quietly.
“You are a Romanov after all.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No,” Ilana agreed. “It isn’t.”
Silence settled again, but it felt different now. Less suffocating and more focused.
“You’re going to move carefully now and think before you act,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And when you see her—”
“I won’t ask that question again.”
